RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS

Former president of Russian Baptists sets
Jehovah's
Witnesses case in wider context

--Portal-Credo.Ru: How do you evaluate the very
fact of the
appearance of the lawsuit by the Ministry of Justice for the
liquidation and
effective prohibition of the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses in
Russia?

--Pastor Yury Sipko: On 2017 Street. After a
century of the
rule of lawlessness. A Jubilee, so to speak. And jubilees are
usually marked by
fireworks. Fireworks from such vile acts are already starting.

Remember? The earth-shaking financial scam from
Baikal
Financial Group. The death of Magnitsky and promotion of all whom
he exposed
and who collaborated in his death. Victorious war with Georgia.
Vile war with
Ukraine. Numerous murders of political and public leaders and
flight abroad,
which nevertheless does not save from repression and death.
Polonium as a means
of settling accounts with political opponents.

The destruction of practically all rights
advocacy
organizations. Destruction of practically all nongovernmental
public
organizations. What is the condition of the True Orthodox Church?

The second decade is ending when lawlessness,
falsehood,
violence, bribery, and blackmail have seized all levels of the
upper
government. The concept of rights and liberties of man and citizen
are
ridiculed and betrayed. Amendments to the law on freedom of
conscience,
regulating evangelistic activity, rammed in one fell swoop into
the
"package of antiterrorism laws" and nobody flinched. Having
equated
evangelism, an essentially religious activity, with terrorism, the
government
declared war on believing people. Followers of Scientology have
been banned,
numerous local organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses have already
been
prohibited, and the lawsuit for banning the Administrative Center
of Jehovah's
Witnesses (JW) testifies to the loss of common sense by people of
the
government.After
all, this
declaration of the Ministry of Justice was preceded by numerous
criminal acts
by people of the government when questionable literature was
planted in
Jehovah's Witnesses' meetings.

--Can there be a rationale for placing
Witnesses'
publications in the list of "extremist publications"?

--There is not a single instance when the
activity of the JW
organization was aimed at support of terrorism or was extremist.
In our
country, the JW have done nothing illegal and they have never even
come close
to the territory of politics.

--Is the situation in Russia really so
hopeless?

--It is bitter to realize that the people of
the government,
who are called to observe and defend justice and law, create
lawlessness,
denying the most vital rights of citizens of Russia. Deputies and
judges,
mayors and ministers, as I have frequently heard with my own ears,
lie
publicly, without even blushing, and sell their honor for nothing.
Depravity
and permissiveness, in the absence of restraining forces, spill
out the lowest
passions. Such trends give evidence of the profound moral
disintegration of the
ruling elite. The process of violence to common sense only picks
up speed.

There are no reasons to harbor illusions about
a temporary
clamp down, as if it originates from the difficult international
circumstances
and is applied as protection from "intrigues of enemies" and from
multiplying terrorism and from the need to protect sovereignty.
The best
defense of sovereignty is absence of enemies. The best way to lose
sovereignty
is to engender enemies, internal and external.

--In your opinion, what kind of goals does the
government
pursue by means of discrimination against individual confessions?

--In pursuing and demeaning people, the
government
contributes to the destruction of the country. Pressure on
religious
organizations derives from animal fear living in the heart of
people who commit
lawlessness. This is the spiritual damage of power.

"Fear has big eyes." The roots of fear are
extremely deep. They have a religious quality. Fear comes from the
joining of
power and force, unlimited violence, assimilated in the Horde, and
the force of
sacred power perceived as the cover of a higher order, which
Orthodoxy became
in Russia. Today nobody is able to separate this two-headed
creature. One head
will please the other because it depends on it completely. And
similarly the
other head, which depends of the first, will get everything it
wants at its
disposal.

The main goal of such a two-headed creature is
to rule the
world. Therefore the process of destroying freedom will continue.
On all
fronts. And nobody has a chance of sitting it out. Such are the
prospects of
our history.

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the former USSR.

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